Fred Kimble??

[Mike of the Mountain]

Not for nothing, what's up with all the Fred Kimble posts? Whatever he did with a shotgun pales in comparison to his character on Green Acres!!!!

[John Davis]

February 27 to March 16, 1872, Fred Kimble hunted along the Sangamon River. In his 1879 revised edition of American Wild-fowl Shooting, J. W. Long recounts the expedition in his chapter on the history of choke bores, as follows:

“The next season I did not hunt; Fred had removed to Young America, now known as Monmouth, Ill., and there carried on the lumber business. In the latter part of the shooting season, the spring of ‘72, he took a short pleasure trip with a party of five others to the Sangamon River, and there made the score I have mentioned on page 180 of this book; and to show the superiority of the choke at long ranges (for nearly all the shooting was at ‘travelers’), when handled by a crack shot such as he, I will just add that the score of the entire party, Fred included, was 2760. The five other guns, used by good shots too, were all double-barrelled, and four of them breech-loaders. Comment is unnecessary.”

The score Long refers to above was cited in both the 1874 and 1879 editions of his book and appears as follows:

“I subjoin a memorandum of shooting done by a friend of the author, Mr. F. Kimble, a genuine duck-shooter, during the spring of 1872, all with a single-barrelled muzzle-loading gun, 9 gauge. Not over three ducks were killed at any one shot, and nearly all singly:

Feb. 27, killed 70 ducks.
Feb. 28, killed 74 ducks
Feb 29, killed 81 ducks
Mar. 1, killed 76 ducks
Mar. 2, killed 106 ducks
Mar. 3, killed 61 ducks
Mar. 4, didn’t shoot.
Mar. 5, killed 66 ducks.
Mar. 6, killed 107 ducks
Mar. 7, killed 57 ducks
Mar. 8, killed 65 ducks
Mar. 9, killed 82 ducks
Mar. 10, killed 60 ducks
Mar. 11, killed 72 ducks
Mar. 12, killed128 ducks
Mar. 13, didn’t shoot.
Mar. 14, killed 122 ducks.
Mar. 15, killed 70 ducks
Mar. 16, killed 68 ducks
Total ducks killed 1,365

Total 17 days’ shooting, 1,365 ducks, and 5 brant not included in memorandum. His ammunition gave out almost every day. Not expecting to find such a large amount of game, the party he was with took but little with them, and the ‘store keeper’ at the little town near by would order only a keg or so of powder at a time, and then would not sell it all to one person at any price, for fear of offending others.”

Just to recap, Fred Kimble bagged 1365 of the 2760 ducks taken by the entire party of six. And this with a single barrel muzzle loader, while the other five gentlemen all shot double barrels, four of them breach loaders.

[charlie cleveland]

he was certainly a good shot with that 9 gauge he certainly had to pack a lot of powder in a day thru that gun... they sure had a lot more game than we do now....would have loved to have been on that hunt....charlie

[Mike of the Mountain]

That’s a LOT of ducks!!!

[Mike Franzen]

So he had a choke bored muzzle loader?

[Bill Murphy]

Yes, a Tonks of Boston gun that he choke bored himself.

[John Davis]

Yes he did. And herein lies the genesis of the claim that Kimble "invented" choke boring in shotguns. His first choked bored muzzle loader was a 6 gauge Tonks. In 1879, J. W. Long published the revised and enlarged edition of his 1874 book, American Wild Fowl Shooting. In this edition, Long includes his version of the discovery of choke boring. Long tells the story of the wager he had with his good friend Fred Kimble to see who could come up with the closest shooting gun. When Kimble saw the results of the gun Long had found, he wrote to Long and said “Buy that gun, and send it to me sure.” Long did so “and that same act was a means of causing choke-bores to spread, as they never had spread before, even throughout the civilized world.” Long’s reference to “the civilized world” implies that it was Kimble’s gun which was responsible for spreading the word of choke-boring across the Atlantic. Joseph Long was an agent for Greener shotguns in America. Around 1874, Kimble’s 6-gauge, choke-bored shotgun was sent to W. W. Greener in England for testing and measuring. Thereafter, Greener claimed to have invented choke-boring as we know it today.


Now you've really got me missing EDM.

[Bill Murphy]

John, is that because EDM would dispute your story or just embellish it. Do you have the "For Sale" ad from an early publication, offering the 6 gauge Tonks for sale? I don't know whether I sent you the copy or just a reference.

[John Davis]

Bill, I still remember you scolding the two of us for slapping each other around (with words of course). You were a great referee. I'm sure Ed is now in the great beyond typing up a 200,000 word rebuttal to my last post.

You did share with me the ad for the Tonks gun and as always I greatly appreciate it. John

[Bill Murphy]

Anyone who has any interest in Fred Kimble should search for a copy of one or both of his books devoted to the great Fred Kimble. I reread volume 2 last week, cover to cover.